Music camp notes

Sometimes words are inadequate, I think.  Some concepts, feelings, delights or horrors can’t always be articulated effectively with the boundaries of letters.  Sometimes we need to look deeper, and for me, that means listening to music.

Of the four of us, I am the only one who does not play an instrument.  I am writing this while waiting for TD at Beau Soleil Music Centre, where she is rehearsing with the strings ensemble.  They play beautifully.  She is also part of the school orchestra, one of three double basses in the 60 strong pupil group (aged between 13 and 18).  This past weekend, the school took all the orchestra, concert band and jazz band learners away on a music camp. (As I have already mentioned, it is a Very Good School.)

If you want parents of T1 teenagers to go weak at the knees and tremble slightly, just say the word “Camp.”  A lot of preparation, care and anxiety goes into sending someone with T1 on a camp.  Apart from the usual clothes, tuck, soap and toothpaste, I packed a loaf of whole wheat bread, sugar free jam, nutella, bottles of water, pronutro –a breakfast cereal- and Ensure (a meal replacement drink).  I also included extra iceblocks, extra insulin, needles, the food diary and a slab of chocolate for slow release evening carbs.  All of this had to fit into the tiniest of cooler bags so that TD didn’t feel too conspicuous, and her luggage blended in with the rest of the group.  (The fact that that her instrument is by far the largest in the orchestra did not escape my ironic sense of humour.)

Before any school camp, I make an appointment to speak to the teachers concerned.  I take along my “Camp Pack.”  It consists of a typed handout I give the teachers, my notes to make sure I verbally cover all the things I feel I want to tell them, an emergency kit and an orange.  I let them know what to look out for in highs and lows, where the potential dangers lie, and what to do if things don’t go according to plan.  I explain the insulin routines – the long acting insulin is injected at 6am and 9.30 pm, and how  the short acting insulin dosage  is calculated at mealtimes.  And then I give them the orange and show them the emergency GlucaGen Hypokit which is given to a person with T1 if they have gone so low  that they are unresponsive and unable to ingest glucose by mouth.  It is a life saving procedure, so I feel it is only fair to give the teachers a practice round.  Mixing the solution and injecting it is not as easy as it sounds, so a trial run is a good idea.

So TD went off to camp on Friday afternoon amid much excitement and a little trepidation.  Of course I worry when she is away: not so much in the day time, because TD is very capable of managing her diabetes and knows (usually) when she is going low.  It is the nights that make me fearful.  When she is asleep, she cannot “read” her body in the same way.  She won’t be aware that she is going low.  And she won’t know how low she is.  This is what I worry about.

All the parents are invited to a concert at the camp on Sunday afternoon, so that we can listen to the groups perform (and take our children home…)  It was a hot, hot day.  Roadworks meant we arrived only 15 minutes before the concert was due to start.  As we took our seats, TD came to say hello.  She had had a good camp.  She was unbelievably pale.  And her glucose reading was 2.2. This is breathtakingly low, and she says it had dropped very quickly.  Two sachets of glucose later, and still looking wispily pale, she and her fellow musicians put on an excellent concert.

This was her second low on the camp :  she had had another scary dip to 3 the day before.

TD made a lot of friends at Music camp.  She spent much of the free time in the pool.  She played card games.  They stayed up too late.  She wasn’t too sure about all the camp food : all the usual teenage camp antics.  It is an enormous responsibility the teachers take on, and I am thankful to the school for adding to TD’s memory bank of happy times.

Music is such a powerful form of communication.  When I listen to the school orchestra, and think about the power of co-operation and collaboration and leadership to bring about beauty and harmony  I find I don’t need any more words for a while.

So – here is a soundbite of the school orchestra for your listening pleasure: